tank and floor

[krkosiba]

I don't know really where to post this question nor do I know if anyone could help me with this question. Anyways, is it safe to put a 120 gallon tank in my upstairs? Or will I crack a floor joist...better yet, walk in and it is laying in the basement. It would be against a load bearing wall and perpendicular to the joists. I just don't know if it is safe to have 1500 pounds upstairs. If it isn't safe could I sister the joists due to the fact I have a drop ceiling in my basement? Anyways, thanks.

[returnofsid]

Most 120s are 48"X24"X24". That gives you a footprint of 8 square feet. 120 pounds of saltwater will weigh approximately 1080 pounds. Any equipment, rock, or sand will displace the water, so the weight inside the tank will stay about the same. Figure a couple hundred pounds for the tank and stand, you're looking about approximately 1300 pounds, so your 1500 pound figure is a good one to go with. If you take 1500 pounds, divided by 8 square feet, you get about 188 lbs/sq. ft. Keeping it next to a load bearing wall and perpendicular to the floor joists, IMO, you're just fine. A lot of times, we don't realize that when we move up to larger tanks, we aren't really adding much to the weight, since the larger footprint distributes the weight over a larger area. One caveat, IF your have a stand with 4 legs, instead of a stand that continuously spread the weight over the entire stand, it won't work.

Consider a 55 gallon aquarium. 495 of water, equipment etc. inside the tank, 150 lbs for tank and stand and you're up to approximately 650 lbs. The footprint of a 55 is 4 square feet. That's 162 lbs/sq. ft. Only 26 lbs/sq ft less than a 120....lol.

I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "sister the joists." You could brace things further by adding more joists, or doubling up your joists, but they'd have to still sit on the bearing wall, or they wouldn't make any difference.

[krkosiba]

hey thanks, sistering the joists is a more technical term to double the joists. Don't worry I had no idea what it was until about 3 days ago when I did research on how to reinforce floors, lol. Just wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

[jemsriki]

Iwould definately not do it, If you were agoing across the beams it would be a different story, but your going to put nearly a ton of weight under each beam under the tank.